Minister Ex-Communicates Members For Not Backing Bush

Waynesville, NC-- The minister of a Haywood County Baptist church is telling members of his congregation that if they're Democrats, they either need to find another place of worship or support President Bush.

Already, the Reverend Chan Chandler has ex-communicated nine members of East Waynesville Baptist Church. Another 40 members have left in protest.

Yes, I am familiar with the process. It was done to a woman friend for exactly the reasons you describe when she was about 17 and really in need of some Christian support. (She kept the baby and raised on her own. A lot of heartache there but she was and is a good woman.) However, outside of self isolating groups such as the Amish dechurching has little bite except for helpless types such as my friend. Adults can pretty much say 'up yours' and find another congregation to take them, If you live in NC there are plenty of different kinds of Baptists around. I don't if the Rev and his congregation are SBC or independent or Primitive or what. The idiot writing the AP dispatch surely didn't.

Up here in New England we have the Unitarians for those who don't want to have to deal with faith or religious belief or moral absolutes when they go to "church". Just a good place to go to be accepted and have just about whatever you want to do validated as being "ok" and "normal".

Again, let me say, I don't agree with throwing people out of a church. However, the article doesn't give both sides of the story. Isn't there at least a possibility that those Democrats who were asked to leave were being disruptive to the church body as a whole? What if a group of liberals joined your church and wanted to get a gay minister? Or wanted to the church to support a pro-choice stance? We're not getting both sides of the story from this article. It's merely intended to make Southern Christians look narrow-minded and hateful.

World Net Daily has an article on this and stated that "Among the ex-communicated were leaders who had been in the church 30 or 40 years." so it does not appear these nine were disruptive members, but in leader positions.

More from WND:

But WLOS said Chandler, who could not be reached for comment, has insisted his actions are not politically motivated.

Church member Lewis Inman said to the Asheville station: "[Chandler] told us that if we didn't support George Bush we needed to resign our position and get out, or go to the altar and repent, and support George Bush."

. . .

Former member Frank Lowe told WLOS: "He says if we supported John Kerry, we have supported abortion and homosexuality."

But Lowe and other departed members insist they don't agree to those stances.

Responding to the news, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance, a left-leaning group, issued a statement.

"This sad spectacle is the predictable consequence of the Religious Right's insistence on measuring a person’s religion by social-political litmus tests," Gaddy said.

"Not only does the pastor's reported action violate both the spirit and substance of the United States Constitution's provisions of religious liberty, it also offends the conscience of people who understand religion in terms of the realm of the spirit, not votes in a presidential election."

Addressing the Baptist pastor's call for repentance on the part of those who didn't vote for Bush, Gaddy said, "The screaming need is for repentance among those who would tie religion to partisan politics."

A contributor to the leading liberal weblog Daily Kos wrote: "For those that thought that there has not been a full scale war lanched against liberals; for those who didn't take the radical right's promise to "eradicate liberals" seriously, I present to you, Exhibit A: East Waynesville Baptist Church has just kicked out all its Democratic members."

In a later post, the contributor commented: "This isn't a 'culture' war, people. This isn't some sort of political game. This action merely foreshadows what is to come: the radical religious right seeking to impose a theocracy upon this nation. Purge the liberals from society.

"Welcome to the Blue Scare. Welcome to Grade-A, government-sanctioned McCarthyism against liberals and against anyone who doesn't embrace their distorted worldview. Here is the face of the American jihad."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44152

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